Sila · Pāli: sīla; Skt: śīla

In the Cūḷavedalla Sutta (MN 44) the nun Dhammadinnā groups the Noble Eightfold Path into three aggregates, placing right speech, right action, and right livelihood under the aggregate of virtue (sīlakkhandha). Sīla is thus the first of the three trainings — virtue, concentration, and wisdom — and the ground on which the others rest. Its Sanskrit form is śīla.

The emphasis falls on character rather than on a rule book. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it, “someone has śīla when, having made a commitment to follow a certain set of moral rules, she is actually disposed to follow those rules”. Sīla is the settled inclination, not the list.

For lay practitioners the everyday shape of that inclination is the five precepts, which Access to Insight describes as “basic training rules” that “are observed by all practicing lay Buddhists”. Their wording is telling, because each is taken on rather than handed down: “I undertake the precept to refrain from destroying living creatures.” Our guide to the five precepts works through all five.

Mahayana sources keep sīla and set it in a wider frame. There it is listed second among the six perfections: “1. Generosity (dāna) 2. Moral discipline (śīla) 3. Patient endurance (kṣānti) 4. Perseverance (vīrya) 5. Meditative stability (dhyāna) 6. Wisdom (prajñā)”. The conduct being trained is much the same; what changes is the company it keeps and the scale of the aspiration behind it.